How Do You Eat an Elephant?

I hope you all had a great New Year and are preparing yourselves for what awaits you in the upcoming year. Like many of you, I have a book I hope to have completely finished and submitted this year, but keep in mind it will take more than hope to get that book published.

I sat with my husband this past week and reviewed our goals and plans for the upcoming year, and what we needed to do for him to retire early. He’s an engineer who specializes in capital projects. He knows the importance of not just having a plan, but implementing it and moving forward to the ultimate goal preferably ahead of schedule.

He’s great at what he does, and as many of us do, brings his work home with him. This can be a challenge at times because I for one am not as rigid and disciplined as he is. He is very detailed and motivated. He is results oriented.

I should be more like him. I’ve written several blogs on motivation and having an accountability partner. I’ve also written blogs on setting goals for yourself and working towards them.

One of the main things I have learned from my husband and from living life itself, is you have to set goals! You have too!!!! Put your dreams down on paper and break them down into steps. You can’t jump from point A to point Z, for most of us that thought would be overwhelming and stop us in our tracks.

You can move from point A to point B and then to point C and so forth. You will get there but take it one day at a time, working toward the objective you have set for that day.

I spent the majority of my professional career working with people who had profound developmental disabilities. They couldn’t even perform basic care skills like washing their hands. So what did me and my team do? We set objectives in place to lead to the ultimate goal. Just like I’m talking about in this blog. We broke the task down in to steps and worked toward the big picture. e.g. Turn on water, place your hands under water, get soap, rub your hands together, rinse hands, turn water off, dry hands. Very basic but I think it gets the message across.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. I know I read this somewhere. I’m not that creative. Not sure where though. If you’re like me that unfinished novel is definitely the elephant in the room.

Goals without a plan is just a wish. I have just met my goal of completing my novel. Now it’s off to Beta Readers (two are historians who are specialists in the era or location of the story). Then after revisions – the editor. Thanks for the encouragement, my “elephant” is now half consumed.

Great post and solid advice. I’ve often used the elephant metaphor when helping people deal with monumental tasks. We’re in the middle of a move and I’ve certainly been trying to break down all of the moving pieces. As you say, one bite at a time!